About Us
Who We Are
The Mallarmé Chamber Players are a flexible ensemble of professional musicians based in Durham, North Carolina, whose mission is to enrich the lives of the community through outstanding chamber music performance. The ensemble distinguishes itself in the community by its innovative educational programs, its commitment to creative collaboration with other organizations, its creation of significant new work and its dedication to serve a diverse population.
Created in 1984 by musicians Jane Hawkins and Anna Ludwig Wilson working with poet and arts administrator Margaret DeMott, the ensemble’s name comes from Stéphane Mallarmé, the 19th-century French poet and philosopher who believed that true art is created through a unity of music, dance, literature and the visual arts. In keeping with their namesake, Mallarmé performances are often interdisciplinary and have been praised by critics and audiences as innovative, eclectic and of the highest artistic quality.
With the most gifted artists from North Carolina Mallarmé Chamber Players perform programs that include rarely heard works from the traditional chamber music repertoire that celebrate the diversity in our community by featuring the music of African American, Asian, Latino and women composers. Mallarmé has commissioned over 35 new works by American composers. They have created new contours in the landscape of chamber music through partnerships with artists of many different disciplines. Through their eclectic education programs they have developed a new model for community-based arts organizations.
For Mallarmé’s 25th anniversary season in 2008-09, Suzanne Rousso, violist and former orchestra administrator, took the helm as the new artistic director of the ensemble. 2019-20 is Mallarmé’s 36th year!
2019-20 Board of Directors and Staff
Nancy Clapp-Channing, co-chair
Florence Nash, co-chair
Ruth Cox
Kim Demery
Celia Dickerson, treasurer
Michael Fisher
Jeanetta Hopkins
Jacqueline Nappi, secretary
Tony Sprinkle
Baron Tymas
Suzanne Rousso, artistic director, suzanne at mallarmemusic.org
Mickaella Guarascio, operations manager, mickaella at mallarmemusic.org
Featured Artist
David Wilson - baroque violin (Baroque à Cinq)
Baroque violinist DAVID WILSON plays regularly with Ensemble Vermillian and Magnificat, and he is a founding member of Archetti, the Galax Quartet, and other ensembles.
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He has taught baroque violin at Indiana University, where he earned the Doctor of Music degree in Early Music, and he holds degrees in violin from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He teaches violin and chamber music and directs the orchestra at the San Francisco Early Music Society’s annual Baroque Workshop. His interests outside of music include cosmology, zymurgy and science fiction (and he would love to discover a science fiction novel about a homebrewing cosmologist). In recent years, he has performed and recorded classical music of India and the Ottoman Empire with Lux Musica (East Meets West Music and Golden Horn Records), contemporary music with the Galax Quartet (Innova Recordings), and 18th century concerti with Archetti (Centaur Records). He is the author of Georg Muffat on Performance Practice, published by Indiana University Press and of the article on Georg Muffat in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Historical Performance in Music, published in 2018.
